Cloned food soon on sale in the USA and Britain

[Guest guest]

CLONED FOOD ON ITS WAY TO BRITAIN

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story39887

 

Food from cloned farm animals is heading towards dinner tables, after being

cleared by America's top scientific body.

 

US farmers already have cloned cattle, pigs and sheep and have been waiting

for official clearance before putting their milk and meat on the market.

Experts say that once cloned food goes on sale in America, probably as soon

as next year, it will be extremely hard to stop it being exported to

Britain.

 

Animal welfare experts are deeply alarmed at the prospect of what they

describe as " the ultimate in factory farming " , because studies show that

cloning inflicts particularly great suffering.

 

Today is the Church of England's first Animal Welfare Sunday, an annual

event on which Anglicans will be asked to speak out against cruel farming

and switch to organic or free-range food.

 

Millions of shoppers are bound to harbour suspicions about cloned food,

after the widespread rejection of GM produce but the Food Standards Agency

admits that it would not automatically be labelled.

 

The new report by the US National Academy of Sciences concluded that there

is no evidence that cloned produce poses " a food safety concern " . Dr Kim

Waddell, director of the two-year study, told the Independent on Sunday

late last week: " We cannot envisage any problem from a theoretical

standpoint,

and there is nothing to suggest that there would be one. "

 

Though cautiously worded, and accompanied by calls for further studies,

this assurance is likely to lead the US Government's Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) which commissioned the report to give cloned

food the go-ahead over the next few months.

 

Cloning has progressed rapidly since the creation of Dolly the sheep at

Edinburgh's Roslin Institute five years ago. Now at least 14 firms in the

 

US, Japan, Canada and Australia mainly linked with universities are

carrying it out commercially. One company Prolinia, in Athens, Georgia has

even

successfully cloned a cow after it had been slaughtered. It boasts: " This

breakthrough has the potential to revolutionise beef cattle production by

allowing producers to select cells from the highest quality meat, after it

has been graded, to clone animals to stock their herd. "

 

Producers say milk, butter and cheese from cloned animals is likely to be

the first food to go on sale, probably next year. Meat would probably first

be produced from the offspring of clones, because the technique is

expensive, but this could change as costs fell. Veal from offspring could

again go on sale next year, and pork the year after.

 

Animal welfare charities are appalled at the prospect of the technology

spreading. They point out that many cloned embryos abort and that many that

are born alive have health defects: Dolly has developed arthritis. And they

add that breeding herds of identical animals would leave them particularly

susceptible to disease.

 

Julia Wrathall of the RSPCA said: " We can see no benefit at all from going

down this road. Animals would presumably be cloned for high production, and

they are already being pushed beyond the limit. " She said the Government

failed to implement recommendations from official inquiries for controls on

the technology.

 

US farmers have been pouring away milk from cloned cattle, after being

asked by the FDA voluntarily to not sell it until there is an official

ruling.

 

The Government says that Britain has no specific laws controlling produce

from cloned animals, though it would have to be shown to be the same as its

conventional counterpart. That, by definition, is what cloning produces.